Gallery: world's top design prize goes to one of the cheapest tools for tech tinkering.

The winners of the design world's most lucrative prize have been announced.

Among the five receipients of Index: Design to Improve Life's 2013 awards are Raspberry Pi, a paper sheet that preserves fruit and vegetables, and a concept for smart highways that charge electric cars on the go.

The five winners, chosen for their potential to improve living standards, will share the Danish non-profit's €500,000 ($660,400) prize, receiving €100,000 ($132,080) each.

Studio Roosegaarde

Conceptualized by Daan Roosegaarde in collaboration with Heijmans Infrastructure, smart highways would launch roads into the 21st century, transforming them into dynamic and interactive surfaces. Smart Highways won in the Community category.

Studio Roosegaarde

Conceptualized by Daan Roosegaarde in collaboration with Heijmans Infrastructure, smart highways would launch roads into the 21st century, transforming them into dynamic and interactive surfaces. Smart Highways won in the Community category.

Studio Roosegaarde

Smart roads would use glow in the dark paint that would reduce the need for road lighting, responsive lights that turn on and off in response to the presence of cars, dynamic paint that would tell you when there's frost on the road, and charging lanes for electric cars. The €100,000 ($132,080) prize money will be used to turn the ideas into reality, including a pilot project in Mumbai or Cape Town.

Fenugreen

Invented by Kavita Skukla and now sold by her organization Fenugreen, FreshPaper is like a "dryer sheet for fruit and vegetables." This simple piece of paper is infused with spices that slow bacterial and fungal growth, meaning that fruit and vegetables stay fresh for longer.

INDEX: Design to improve life

It is now sold in 35 countries and is an attempt to tackle the problem of food wastage. It won in the Home category and the €100,000 ($132,080) prize money will be used to expand distribution into the developing world and develop new uses for it in those places.

Paul Beech (@guru)

The wildly successful £16 Raspberry Pi Computer won in the Play&Learning category. Since its launch in 2012, millions of the tiny computers have been sold worldwide, sparking new innovation and learning as children and adults alike use the Pi for learning, invention and business. The €100,000 prize money will be used to hire staff to further develop Pi educational material

Laerdal Global Health

This is a simulated womb, designed to train midwives in developing countries on how to prevent birth asphyxia, which is when babies are deprived of oxygen during or just after birth. Designed by Laerdal Global Health in Norway, it has helped bring about a 47 percent reduction in birth asphyxia in projects in Tanzania.

Laerdal Global Health

It is estimated that 3,000 newborn babies died every day due to birth asphyxia. The Natalie Collection includes a series of tools to help midwives, including a simulator for birthing and a silicone suction devices for clearing a newborn's airways. The €100,000 ($132,080) prize in the Body category is being donated to the International Confederation of Midwives.

INDEX: Design to improve life

In 2011, the Danish capital Copenhagen suffered serious flooding. Now in a bid to mitigate the impact of climate change and the increase in freak weather occurences associated with it, architects, designers, and engineers are seeking to "climate proof" the city. The city won in the Community category and the prize money will go towards creating new design solutions to the challenges thrown up by climate change.

Oh my effing god. Who judged this thing? This is almost as silly as the notion of paving the freeways with solar cells. Not quite. But almost.

'Design' contests have a...certain history... when it comes to ideas that are aesthetically pleasing but perhaps underthought. If anything, this one had a relatively good ratio of 'actually shipped and demonstrated results' vs. 'our idea guy told the photoshop kid about it and the resulting slide deck looked pretty neat'.

The rPi and the birth-asphyxia kit are both apparently already demonstrated.

The preservative-paper stuff has a less-than-exciting selection of actual verified science(which is a trifle disconcerting for an experiment that should cost about as much as the fruits and vegetables used to run it, apparently TED is too cool for peer review...); but if somebody gets around to demonstrating it it'll be fine.

Thermally-active pigments for roads might be tricky(pigments that work in paint are well proven in other applications, pigments that work in thermoplastic-binder systems and survive the 400 degree application process may well be doable but are less likely to be already-in-stock); but could certainly be doable for bridges and other areas where freezing is non-obvious and good to know about.

Large scale, high-power, wireless electrical delivery is probably best left to Tesla cultists.

The 'flooding is bad, we should develop innovative innovations' entry doesn't really make enough claims to judge.

I found this simple experiment on FreshPaper. They found some evidence that mold was inhibited, but (unsurprisingly) the makers' claims that it inhibits the intrinsic enzymes responsible for most spoilage seem to be junk. According to some credulous business mag she got the idea when the inventor's grandmother gave her a mixture of herbs and spices to prevent gastroenteritis (because all you need to treat E. coli is some magic spice....)

I found this simple experiment on FreshPaper. They found some evidence that mold was inhibited, but (unsurprisingly) the makers' claims that it inhibits the intrinsic enzymes responsible for most spoilage seem to be junk. According to some credulous business mag she got the idea when the inventor's grandmother gave her a mixture of herbs and spices to prevent gastroenteritis (because all you need to treat E. coli is some magic spice....)

Conclusion: there's one born every minute

The coverage of her project(as well as the sales site itself) is covered with that sickeningly syrupy mixture of covert-self-congratulation and essence-of-motivational-poster that just makes me want to spew acidic bile from my secondary mandibles; but I figured that, pending some Science Time, the possibility that appropriate plant concentrates inhibit decay isn't wildly implausible on its face: we know about things like ethylene-based ripening coordination, and we know that plants have been locked in an evolutionary battle to not rot while still alive, so I'd assume that they've got some tricks up their sleeve on that angle.

The lack of any actual science, and the oh-so-twee-it-hurts-story-of-grandma's-exotic-earth-wisdom origin story, give it an off flavor; but the existence of a mechanism of action at least falls within the realm of biological plausibility. Given the history of 'design' competitions awarding things that don't even work in zero-friction, 100% efficiency, physics experiment land, it may actually be above average.

It still makes me more than a trifle nervous that (A) they can't seem to be bothered to get even token study (and this would not be experimental rocket surgery here) done, reviewed, and published, and (B) the fact that (in a market where some billions/year are lost to food spoilage, and you might expect significant interest in new things to spray on food to keep it from grower to market, they are still selling little blotter paper chunks at retail. It's like those inventions that promise to 'zOMG improve engine efficiency and gas mileage': guess what, guys, if you have a widget that does what you say it does, any major automaker or OEM part supplier would snap you up in a second, so why are you peddling kits online?

I did a bit of googling before claiming her claims were baseless without base.This is the fenugreek paper patent (from 2002):https://www.google.com/patents/US637222 ... CDsQ6AEwAQIt basically says 'fenugreek + paper = awesome packaging', so that doesn't really help in verifying its claims.

Ancient claims about its anti-inflammatory properties are common though, and the EU allows ground fenugreek seeds as a pesticide:http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/Lex ... 008:EN:PDFThough it notes "Only uses as elicitor of the crop’s self-defence mechanisms may be authorised," which isn't all that helpful for dead, cutoff fruits, stems and leaves of plants.Also:"E. coli: EU bans Egyptian seeds after fenugreek link"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14035120Which seems to indicate it isn't immune to all contaminants.Google Scholar does turn up a few papers which research this question (specifically in regards to fenugreek oil), but they're all paywalled.

So basically, a definite maybe in regards to it helping a little.

More fun from wikipedia:"Fenugreek seeds are thought to be a galactagogue that is often used to increase milk supply in lactating women."and"[...] men aged 25 to 52 who took a fenugreek extract twice daily for six weeks scored 25% higher on tests gauging libido levels than those who took a placebo."

Edit:A bit more googling and I've found exactly one site that has actually reviewed it, rather than just copying the marketing claims and stating "OMG, rotten food is, like, SO awful!"http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/maga ... /index.htmConsumer Reports confirms my assessment of 'definite maybe'

What Consumer Reports actually said was: 'The ones with the FreshPaper and the ones without the FreshPaper showed signs of spoilage.'

I can't see how that translates into 'definite maybe' - they found no effect on spoilage and one case in which mold didn't develop. The most charitable interpretation is that it releases a vaguely fungicidal gas, though even that's doubtful, as the CR experiment didn't control for the environment, using two different fridges with possibly different levels of fungal spores present.

What Consumer Reports actually said was: 'The ones with the FreshPaper and the ones without the FreshPaper showed signs of spoilage.'

I can't see how that translates into 'definite maybe' - they found no effect on spoilage and one case in which mold didn't develop. The most charitable interpretation is that it releases a vaguely fungicidal gas, though even that's doubtful, as the CR experiment didn't control for the environment, using two different fridges with possibly different levels of fungal spores present.

Consumer Reports wrote:

Bottom line. Reusable airtight containers seem like a better way to save the world. FreshPaper helped in only one of our scenarios: Used with strawberries stored in their original containers and placed in the fridge, it staved off mold for at least two weeks, by which point those without FreshPaper had grown fuzzy. The countertop strawberries were quickly fuzzy whether they had FreshPaper or not; the airtight-container fruits were inedible (though mold-free) either way after three weeks.

The exact claims of FreshPaper is that it "inhibit[s] bacterial and fungal growth", which was shown in one case of the Consumer Report. With an extremely small sample size in an uncontrolled environment. So we really don't know much of anything. So yeah, that's what I was going for, we know for sure we don't know if it might work a little bit. It certainly doesn't work absolutely, or to the extent they claim.

There's no frost (there's currently snow on the surrounding mountains, and it's pretty chilly, but no-where near frost), nor do we have electric cars (pretty much at all). The Joule was a pretty awesome electric car developed in Cape Town, but the government ditched the project when money was needed to get it into production, so no electric cars (even though Musk is from South Africa, we drive on the left, so no sign of Tesla yet). And the lights on highways get left on 24 hours a day to stop the cabling being stolen. Turning them off when not needed may result in them being off when needed, too.

Sounds like confirmation of why I generally have a rather low opinion of "design".

I'm curious why the Raspberry Pi has sold way better than say the Beagleboard or COGS or other modular Linux-based dev boards. Is it the price point? Is it a matter of toolchain? Is it because the British dress better?

I'm curious why the Raspberry Pi has sold way better than say the Beagleboard or COGS or other modular Linux-based dev boards. Is it the price point? Is it a matter of toolchain? Is it because the British dress better?

It's hard to argue with a useable Linux board starting at $25, or about a hundred bucks less than the old BeagleBoard.

I'm curious why the Raspberry Pi has sold way better than say the Beagleboard or COGS or other modular Linux-based dev boards. Is it the price point? Is it a matter of toolchain? Is it because the British dress better?

It's hard to argue with a useable Linux board starting at $25, or about a hundred bucks less than the old BeagleBoard.

It's so cheap there is no investment - it costs the same as a round of drinks, so plenty of geeks buy one and leave it lying around in case they think of something cool. And it's so cheap that if you destroy a few, it's no biggie - which makes it comfortable to send up on balloons and kites and rockets and home-made drones and such.

The community gave it a workable desktop from scratch, and the idea that all the installables live on the SD card cleverly makes it easy to swap personality ("today you're my media centre!") and to move installed images from one Pi to another.

And it works with a TV, which is a very clever throwback to the Early Days.

I'm curious why the Raspberry Pi has sold way better than say the Beagleboard or COGS or other modular Linux-based dev boards. Is it the price point? Is it a matter of toolchain? Is it because the British dress better?

It's hard to argue with a useable Linux board starting at $25, or about a hundred bucks less than the old BeagleBoard.

It's so cheap there is no investment - it costs the same as a round of drinks, so plenty of geeks buy one and leave it lying around in case they think of something cool. And it's so cheap that if you destroy a few, it's no biggie - which makes it comfortable to send up on balloons and kites and rockets and home-made drones and such.

The community gave it a workable desktop from scratch, and the idea that all the installables live on the SD card cleverly makes it easy to swap personality ("today you're my media centre!") and to move installed images from one Pi to another.

And it works with a TV, which is a very clever throwback to the Early Days.

It also doesn't hurt that (presumably along with some economies of scale from smartphone demand, though ARM chips have never been a low volume product), the rPi appears to have helped kick off a bit of a crash in the expected price points of actually-usable dev boards. Not only was the Beagleboard substantially more expensive(albeit rather more capable), it was considered to be pretty aggressively priced and atypically open compared to the "Oh, you'll want the Developer Evaluation Kit, $1,000 in units of 1; but it comes with a crippled version of our toolchain..." attitude that helped make certain hackable consumer devices (WRT-54G, NSLU2, etc. so popular among hobbyists.

At this point in the game, I think that there is reason to argue that the rPi is in an awkward spot(Beaglebone Black is just plain better for not much more, various arduino-alike-but-ARM-based boards are creeping toward it in power, so long as you don't need any video, and consume substantially less energy and board space); but it really helped blow the market for actually-affordable-by-hobbyists, rather than "Well, you wouldn't be buying our Dev board unless you worked for a company planning to build a zillion devices based on our chip, so it barely matters what it costs, right?" dev boards wide open.